Orlando is a young team in the middle of its rebuilding process, and finished with a record of 23-59 last season, which left them 15 games out of the playoff picture when all was said and done in the Eastern Conference.

But at least one of the team’s players believes this is the year the Magic can make the leap into the postseason.

Maurice Harkless is one of the young pieces in place on the roster, and started half of his team’s games a season ago while averaging 7.4 points and 3.3 rebounds in 24.4 minutes per contest. He feels like the experiences his club went through last season have prepared the team to be much better in the upcoming season.

“If you look at us last year we competed with pretty much all the best teams in the league, we even beat a few of them,” Harkless said. “I feel like this year, with that much more experience and guys being that much better after another summer of work, we’ll have a chance to make the playoffs.”

Harkless expects the team to be better on the road this season.

“I think that comes with experience,” Harkless said. “You know, just being able to learn how to close those games out. You look at our road games, we’d be in it for the first forty minutes, and it’s those last eight, last six, even those last four minutes. We just let it get away from us. I think a part of that is being young and learning how to win on the road. It’s a lot different than being at home.”

The Magic were 4-37 on the road last year, the worst in the league. But even if they are able to show a marked improvement in that category, Orlando didn’t appear to add enough talent to be considered favorites to reach the postseason just yet.

Arron Afflalo was traded to Denver for Evan Fournier and Jameer Nelson was waived, and while the acquisitions of Channing Frye and Luke Ridnour may help (as will incoming rookies Aaron Gordon and Elfrid Payton), it may take some time for all the pieces to fit — even if guys like Harkless and Victor Oladipo mature more quickly than expected.

That’s a fine sentiment. Saying it publicly is another matter. Not even Harden did that a couple years ago. He was recorded during a pregame team huddle.

There’s a fine line between self-fulfilling confidence and providing bulletin-board material to the opponent. There’s already some animosity between the teams stemming from the Stephen Curry-Harden MVP race in 2015, and it has bubbled since. No matter how harmless Capela’s remark might have been intended to be, it’ll be met contentiously in the Bay Area.

Oklahoma City traded for Victor Oladipo out of Orlando to be their third scorer, behind Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. It didn’t exactly work out that way, Durant bolted town and when Westbrook went off Oladipo was looking for a place to fit in.

That place turned out to be the Pacers.

Oladipo has been playing like an All-Star this season with Indiana, and last week he was key in snapping Cleveland’s 13 game win streak, then turned around and dropped 47 points on Denver. For the week he averaged 35.7 points a game, shot 45.7 percent from three, plus grabbed 7.7 rebounds per game.